Most of the time we don't know what we've got until it's gone. I was going to say "sometimes we don't know," but in my life, at least, I always seem to be oblivious to what means a lot to me beyond, say, a yummy meal or sleeping soundly or a good laugh. Who can explain why we don't know or how we come to some strangely evoked realization?

That said, there are three Sheckley eras in my life. Two were incorporeal. I'll consider those last.

The corporeal part, Era Two, first.

One day, about two years ago, I found myself in a totally empty car of the D train. D trains, for those who don't live in Manhattan, are often fairly old with wide, wide aisles and long, hard metal seats. They are seldom empty at three in the afternoon, but this one was. I was the only passenger in that car. Directly across from me on the seat was a discarded newspaper called "Big News."

"Big News" is the modern decendant of a crude, black and white newspaper called "Street News." That tabloid was conceived of and published to purportedly benefit the homeless by giving them something to buy at a reasonable wholesale price re-sell: Work, earn, get off the streets. At least that was the idea. I hadn't read one for years.